Bittersweet
by Kikiura
Summary: No matter how much he hoped, Seifer knew that he would never get exactly what he wanted. Back on the clocktower, Hayner's thinking the same thing.  Seiner


_bit-ter-sweet (adj.) both pleasant and painful/regretful: __**a bittersweet memory**_

**XxXxX**

"Hey, chicken-"

"Back off, Seifer. I'm not gonna take your crap today"

"This mouth spews no crap, lamer, but I'm not so sure about your own."

"Go back to your goons, dipshit. Leave me alone."

**XxXxX**

Sunset in Twilight Town was always a beautiful thing; the colour bled across the horizon like an ink spot that continued to grow until it was devoured by darkness. A lone cloud sat in the sky, basking in the pastel pink rays.

Not that I cared or anything. It was just so…

_Fitting_.

Here I was, tainted by _love, _and yet I stood there alone, watching the lengthy sunset, contemplating the vast complications of life.

Despite popular belief, I _do_ have a brain, and I do use it on a regular basis.

Even when my pride fought against it, of course.

My thinking was far too distracting for the top of Sunset Hill. I could only take in the colours, not the grand view, not the sounds, and even those colours were hazy and practically dull. That lame-ass Hayner had a habit of just _popping_ into my head at any given moment, which caused me to think, which then lowered my reaction time. Any time he had won a struggle against me was because of this and this alone; I have never and will never lose to _anyone_ when I'm in the right state of mind. Even if I had, I wouldn't admit to it freely.

Back to the lamer, though.

He was the only person who could ever distract me, make me _lose_ and _lie_ (I honestly tried to be as truthful as possible, even if the truth was painful), and it was all for possibly the most cheesy and inane reason in the world; I loved him.

See, you would _never_ see me say that out loud, but it was true.

Problem is, though, he could _never_ like me back, and for two good reasons.

One, we were stuck in a "like-dislike" relationship. I can't say "love hate" because I doubted his emotions towards me were that strong and I could never bring myself to truly hate him. Most of the time, we would fight and bicker, but on occasion we would just kind of hang out. Well, patch each other up and make bad jokes, but hang out nonetheless. It had been happening on an almost regular basis now; we would just laugh it off as if it we were actually friends.

Second reason he couldn't like me: he was straighter than a pin. Despite his outward appearance (he looked as fruity as… well, a bowl of fruit), he had a thing for chicks. Hayner had dated Olette for a while (meaning that any jokes I made towards her involved in a bigger fight than usual, without the benefits of make light of the situation) before they had decided on whatever it was that stopped _that relationship._ I was also fairly sure he had a crush on the accessory shop girl, but it was iffy.

Yeah. I basically dug my own grave with this one.

Hayner was probably watching the same sunset with his friends on top of the Station's clock tower. I would rather be up there with him than standing up here, but I was too proud to just _tell him and get it over with_.

Stupid pride.

"Boss."

The monotonous voice halted my (rather depressing) thoughts. I could have kissed Fuu for the distraction, but it was _Fuujin_ I was talking about. She could probably cause me pain in more ways than I could have thought of imagining.

"Yo, Seifer, some brats are bein' rowdy down by the Sandlot. We should check it out, ya know?"

Without even looking back I knew Fuu was causing him some sort of bodily pain. "Independent," she said sternly.

I turned to face them and noticed Rai hightailing it off the hill and towards the tunnels. Hunh. Normally he would have put up more of a fight. "What's up?"

"Thinking." She made no implication that it was a question, making it plain as day that I've been hanging around her too much or that she could read minds.

I forced myself to look strong and proud, crossing my arms in the process, but my mind told me to give in and just _talk_ about it. "What I do in my spare time shouldn't concern you."

She shook her head, sighing. "Worried." Her voice softened to an almost loving tone.

I raised an eyebrow at that.

She sighed again and started to turn away. "Cooped-up."

I froze up, killing the whole "strong" appearance I was trying so hard to pull off, but she had already left.,

Was I _that_ obvious? I didn't think it was possible for people to see any emotion of any sorts from me, but I always had my suspicions about Fuu. She seemed to make up for Rai's ignorance by seeing every fucking thing around her.

I sighed myself and sat on the fence over the tracks, curling my legs under me. The sky still glowed a deep, bloody red, even though the sun itself had set a few minutes ago. It was almost as if the sun was saying a final "fuck you" to the darkness before disappearing to see different day. I always liked to think anything I did went out like that, with a final "BANG", but I felt more like I was simply deflating, fading away into nothing. People weren't as important to me as my strength and pride, but I was being distanced from people, and I didn't like it one bit. Raijin and Fuujin had been together _forever_, even though the actual relationship stage was a new development, and Hayner would never give me a chance to get any closer or even simply say what I wanted to- if I could bring myself to say it, that is.

Our bittersweet relationship was simply that. We were either rivals or semi-friends, nothing more, nothing less. It would be selfish to as any more than that of whatever higher being made things the way they were.

After all, bad attention was still better than none at all.

**XxXxXxXxXxX**

_bit-ter-sweet (adj.) both bitter and sweet to the taste: __**bittersweet chocolate**_

**XxXxX**

I sneezed, causing me to drop my ice cream on to an unsuspecting victim. Olette giggled and yelled down a brief "Sorry!" while Pence was practically rolling around laughing. "Man, you pegged him right on the head!"

I smacked his arm with my sticky hand, getting blue goo on his sleeve. "Let's see if I can throw _you_ with that amount of precision, then." I spat out bitterly, now officially pissed. First my fucked-up mind saying things about Seifer that I _did not_ want to hear, now my lack of ice cream? So not cool.

Pence raised his hands in defence. "Hey, no need to get mad at me."

Olette, possibly the_ most awesome _girl I've ever known, asked Pence to go and buy me another ice cream in that sickly sweet "do it now or else" tone of hers, causing him to scamper away.

She then shuffled a bit more towards me and gave me one of her mother hen looks. I gulped, knowing what she was going to say. "Hayner, does this have anything to do with Seifer?"

I, being the total coward at heart that I am, turned away and held my head up high, hoping to hide my soon-to-be quivering lip with a look saying "I don't want to talk about it."

She sighed and wrapped an arm around my shoulders, turning me to meet possibly one of the scariest faces I've seen on her in a while. "Pence may not notice the way you act around him, Hayner, but that doesn't mean I don't."

I tried to turn back, but she had me in a death grip. "I have no clue what you're talking about." _Yes you do, you coward. You know she knows you like him. You know that all she would want to do once you honestly _admitted it_ would be to get you over it or together with him. _

Olette was going to say something else, but Pence – _my current saviour_ – had come back up with my new popsicle, which stopped her from trying to spew emotional crap at me. "Would you believe it if I said the vending machine already had money in it? Seriously, I was scared you would make me pay for it."

"You should have," I grumbled, but a dark look from Olette kept me from saying anything more.

The other two were talking adamantly about something or other – probably school, being the nerds that they were- as I silently ate my ice cream, thinking about today. It had only been this week that I had realized I liked Seifer in all his asshole-ish glory, and seeing him on a daily basis was_ not _helping me try to get over it. I had brushed him off earlier only because the sun had hit his face _just right_, and he wasn't wearing his beanie and-

Stupid body, having a crush on that jerk was _not_ on my agenda. Like, _ever._

We had even been getting closer as friends, as opposed to just being rivals. Not like I would admit this to anyone else, but when the two of us met up, I felt ridiculously happy, like being on cloud nine or whatever the hell that saying was. And now… I don't think I could ever face him again, after all this. Even if I did, I doubt it would be on friendly terms.

Honestly? It was hopeless to get my hopes up when he was just friend-slash-rival, nothing more, nothing less.

The ice cream had left an odd taste in my mouth, as it usually did, but this time I found it to be fitting. Both sickly sweet and bitterly salty, the ice cream simply reminded me of my fucked up relationship with Seifer.

Bittersweet.

**XxXxXxXxXxXxX**

Why hello there! I don't believe I've ever actually posted a proper story up yet, so here it is. This was prompt 17. Bittersweet from the CamoBeanie 80 prompts contest on deviantART. If you find it up there, don't worry, it's still me! I just go by Minor-Detail over there. No big deal, really.

Anyways! Allow me to ramble about this story for a bit. I think I officially shot it and left it to bleed, but that's my opinion.

I like my dictionary definitions; they add character to the independent parts. See, if I could, I would put the two parts up independently, but since it would have been awkward on dA, I just put them together. Hayner's part it a tad bit too short for my liking, but it was initially just him, watching the sunset ad saying how his life compared to his icecream, but I wanted to abuse Pence for nothing more than simple fun =D

Oh, and for anyone who's curious, Seifer should be given more credit as a thinker and not just a mindless "must be proud and strong" drone. I have my theories about him and his ROMANTIC dream.

Seiner FTW!

PS as you can see, I am lacking in the angst-writing department.


End file.
